HTC Desire 600: Sense 5, BlinkFeed, BoomSound comes to the mid-range

HTC has announced the HTC Desire 600, a mid-range handset with dual-SIM support, giving us the first glimpse at HTC's plans beyond the HTC One.

As a dual-SIM device it's unlikely that the Desire 600 will find its way to the UK – not in this form at least – but the handset itself is significant as the first proper HTC phone launch following the excellent HTC One. Yes, we're ignoring the OEM HTC First Facebook phone.

"The HTC Desire 600 dual sim combines speed and easy multitasking with the truly innovative HTC BlinkFeed home screen. The result is an affordable mid-range phone that sets the standard for its class, keeping the busiest user up-to-date at a glance and offering them the power and range of features to switch between work and play," said Peter Chou, CEO at HTC.

The HTC Desire 600 brings HTC Sense 5.0 along with Android Jelly Bean to a 4.5-inch device. You'll get the benefits of BlinkFeed to give you glance-and-go updates from your favourite news sites and social networks.

Sitting under the hood is a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 1GB of RAM. It's not the most powerful of devices, but it will still pack a punch. The LCD2 screen comes with a 960 x 540 pixel resolution, which is quite a set back in definition from the more recent 1080 or 720 HD display.

There's 8GB of internal memory, but no mention of microSD card expansion, which will be a disappointment to some.

Elsewhere you get HTC BoomSound speakers, along with the Beats Audio label, and once again HTC is giving you two front-facing speakers. If these perform anything like the HTC One, then it will sound incredible.

Around the back is an 8-megapixel sensor. Note that this isn't the UltraPixel sensor found on the HTC One, it's a conventional backside illuminated sensor as found in previous HTC devices. There's a front-facing 1.6-megapixel camera, however, which we're guessing will give you the great performance we've seen on devices like the HTC One X+.

There's no mention of Zoe, the highlight camera feature from the HTC One, but there's a Video Highlights feature mentioned, which it says will create professional-looking video summaries from your content, so it doesn't sound like you miss out on too much.

Video capture, strangely, is listed as topping out at 720p for that rear camera, so it looks as though it is has been artificially limited to hit the spec level for this mid-range phone.

Overall, this mid-range device offers some interesting insights into what we might be seeing in the UK soon to widen HTC's portfolio beyond the HTC One. We're not convinced that the display resolution will appeal, however, lacking that HD tag, but it is at least a chance to see a handset at lower specs with Sense 5.

There's no word on exactly which territories will see the HTC Desire 600; we suspect it will be limited to Asia and Russia.